Artful Durango: River Trail 1

By Eilene Lyon

As you’ve seen from previous posts, Durango has a lively arts scene, and public art is a big part of that. Durango is also a river city and over the four decades I’ve lived here, this feature has become less of an industrial wasteland and more dominated by parks and a trail for bikes and pedestrians.

I’ll be doing an Artful series about this trail, starting with a recent project that has had a few setbacks. Community organizer Turner Wyatt proposed a scale model of the solar system to be installed along the trail, beginning near the north end with an 8-foot diameter sun. Sculptors would be enlisted for that and for other pieces that included proportional versions of each planet, placed at the correct distance from their home star.

Wyatt’s primary projects have not been art related, but in solving food insecurity and helping employees of small companies to buy out retiring owners. Though the Durango Herald article about this project calls him an artist, he has stated he has no artistic abilities. He is a planner and a doer.

One of my dear friends, Suzie Grimm, contributed to the project. Her sculpture is at the south end of the installation with the outermost planet, Neptune. You can see a photo of her with her sculpture in the article.

Because Pluto has been demoted from full-planet status, and it’s size and distance from the sun did not work well, it was not included in the project. So, Suzie named the dog, holding the ball of Neptune in his mouth, Pluto. Her sculpture is based on a dog at the Humane Society shelter, which fittingly is close by. (The real dog was adopted.)

You will note a few omissions from my photos. Most important, there is no sun! In one of the first hiccups to occur, it turned out the design attracted children to climb on it—and injure themselves. It’s in the process of being redesigned and rebuilt.

Traveling north from Neptune, the next sculpture is Uranus. Unfortunately, I somehow missed it on one of my trail walks. You can see it in the Herald article. Then we have Saturn, which is behind the new Durango Fire Station and Backcountry Experience (outdoor gear store).

Jupiter has an excellent location in a botanical garden between the Durango Public Library and the River Trail. Just beyond the trail are the tracks for the scenic Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, then the river itself.

The remaining four planets are clustered together close to the absent sun. The trail is heavily used, particularly during the daytime, but this north section is partially shielded by trees from the view of nearby residents, and apparently attractive to those who get up to some mischief. As a result, two of the artworks have suffered vandalism.

Hopefully I can share images of the missing planets and sun in a future post. Stay tuned!

Feature image: Google Earth view of Durango showing the north and south ends of the solar system art project.